From what you have here, I would be inclined to conclude that Reuters looked at the numbers and saw that Clorox had a "lower quarterly profit," which is probably the truth.

The Clorox news release, on the other hand, stinks of bullshit. It skates round and round whatever the truth is and repeats how gosh-darn proud they are of all the EFFORTS they've been making, which is always the first clue that the RESULTS haven't been great.

Financial folks are going to trust Reuters over the companies they report on. Maybe Clorox should just have kept some of those dogs and ponies indoors and made a simpler statement of their clearly less-than-stellar results and activities.

Or...why was it important for them to issue a news release, period? Forgive me--I'm not in the finance business--but what I'm getting at is: Who is the intended audience? Investors are going to look at other sources. The general public doesn't give a rip. So who is the news release FOR? I know that news releases are WHAT WE DO, but do we ever ask WHY?

Jane, that's a very good question: Is there any reason companies are compelled to put out a news release in conjunction with their quarterly filings?

Compelled? No. Why? I'd suggest one of two things:

1) "We've always done it that way."/"Everybody else does it that way."

2) To go back to your previous post and my comment: "LOOK! The Emperor has FABULOUS clothes on!"

I'm not sure but I think public companies are required by law to issue quarterly disclosure statements to the public.

Yes, I think those are filings that they have to issue to the SEC, where the information is publicly available. But I don't think they have to put them on BusinessWire and I don't think they need to include gleeful quotes by the CEO.

I suspect that Clorox wants people to know that the company is performing well (sales are up) even though profits are down. The press release's language just seemed to gum everything up.

Hang on now -- the quarterly 8-k is judged to be inadequate if the scope of the information is material and of considerable interest to the investor community, or the community of potential investors.

The 8-k also is a fairly dry recitation of the facts and figures that cannot include much in the way of context. You may call that spin, but it usually isn't.

In the Clorox example, it's the desire of the company to focus on the operating results (apart from special charges), which are much more important to investors than the bottom line number.

A Bloomberg story relates the quarterly results deep in its story, focusing at the top on the announced acquisition of Burt's Bees:

"First-quarter net income fell to $111 million, or 76 cents a share, from $112 million, or 73 cents, a year earlier, Clorox said today in a statement. The company blamed rising costs for soybeans and corn used in Hidden Valley salad dressings and for resins used in Glad trash bags.

"Net income included pretax expenses of $27 million, or 12 cents a share. About $25 million was for restructuring and writing down the value of assets, while $2 million was for cost of products sold, the company said.

"Excluding those expenses, profit was 88 cents a share. Twelve analysts expected 71 cents, on average, in a Bloomberg survey."

So, if you set aside the special items (enumerated in the 8-k filing and in the news release) Clorox beat expectations (because the special items had not been baked into analyst expectations.)

This is the main reason you DO a release -- you have to guide the media (even the financial folks who cover you all the time) through the various activities that had material effect on your earnings. Much of the writedowns are required items under generally accepted accounting practices (GAAP).

Hope this nosebleed helps a little!
Cheers.